NathanAlright, this is it for awhile. I promise.
But... I think this one is important, or at the very least, important to me. #ttrpg #rpg
Game
Story
Poll ended at .
I wonder if folks are voting for "game" because often the "story" in most #ttrpgs is conducted by one individual?
Story is less inclusive in most role-playing games, than game is.
Socialism for the GMs, Capitalism for the players.
Yora@herrold Game is something you play.
Story is something you receive. Unless it's produced by playing a game.
@Yora or ya know making up a story, by yourself or with others
LexTenebris@Yora @herrold The problem is this is a false dichotomy. They are orthogonal axes and it is disingenuous to conflate them.
Story is a pattern of narrative. It may be externally imposed, as in a lot of traditional tabletop RPG architectures with strong centralized narrative power in the GM. It may be procedurally emergent with no central GM and mechanics which allow for all the players at the table to introduce new elements of setting and events so that the story per se is in the retelling of what happened, in the very process of being manufactured by play. "Play to find out entirely about story.
Game is about mechanics which isn't necessarily about narrative fiction first and foremost but about providing the buttons and levers and switches for players to manipulate to engage with the process of play.
I won't recapitulate the entire GNS Theory debate here (because I was there for the first time and still have nightmares), but there are elements of deconstructive truth in the idea.
You can have a very game-driven story. You can have storytelling without very much game. You can have a lot of game that generates the story. And you can have not very much of either by mostly having an excuse to hang out together with your friends.
@lextenebris I choose to disagree, but I get what you're saying.
I guess when you mention two things, you call forth a dichotomy, like saying Hastur three times.
I do think that the more game you have, the less story and vice versa. Keys, Artha, Fan Mail be damned.
There is only so much time and attention. Time for story and its form, or time for game and its. It's perfectly fine that you have a different opinion. I would expect nothing but.
I've just not seen it occur.
@herrold
> There is only so much time and attention. Time for story and its form, or time for game and its.
The problem for your argument is that's simply axiomaticly not true. It MIGHT be true if the only kind of story you can imagine is that imposed from above and not emergent from the experience happening at the table, but that's an extremely reductive and not terribly useful way to see it.
Again, I'm terribly sorry for your loss, that you've not had the experience of a story happening in front of you. A series of experiences which are connected narratively by character, theme, and causation.
The process of "telling a story" can be seen to happen in retrospect – but even that fails the test against reality where there are people who can sit down, campfire or not, lean in and tell you a story that no one has ever heard before. That they themselves don't know the facts before they recite them and you don't know the facts before you hear them doesn't keep the experience from being a story.
If you're going to use terminology, at has to at least agree with reality in order to create a shared form to discuss.